"The peak Summer season as we know and no one could get in or out of Rockhampton which meant no one could get in or out of the Capricorn coast and the Capricorn coast's major industry is tourism.

"We were losing up to 90 per cent of trade.

"One operator alone in Yeppoon lost about 300,0000 dollars worth of trade, about 1,200 people lost their jobs either temporarily or permanently because a lot of people in the hospitality/tourism industry are casual or part-time.

"So it was pretty dire times but I'm pleased to say that a year on, it has absolutely been a bumper season.

"We've had a few operators report record trade, not just from the last few years but ever."

She says trends are changing.

"At this time of year, traditionally the majority of visitors are from 400 kilometres radius and sure we get internationals and people from inter-state and intra-state," says Mary.

"I've noticed an interesting trend, we've got five visitor centres, one at Yeppoon, three in Rockhampton and one at Emerald and in the last few months the demographic of between 18 and 35 has been really quite strong and increasing on the coast.

"A lot of those visitors through the doors of the visitor information centre are actually mining families so people who have relocated to this region for work are coming in to find out about their new home.

"So really interesting trends coming through because of the resources boom, interesting demographics and normally this time of year would be generally a visiting friends and relatives market and the free independent traveller market mainly from the 400 kilometre radius.

"There's certainly some trends changing so that's a positive thing I think."

She says the period between Christmas and New Year is a very busy time for tourist operators but these numbers generally thin out around now.

"This year Australia Day is being held on a Thursday and so that means a lot of people will hopefully take an annual leave and have a long weekend for Australia Day," she says.

She says about six businesses on the Capricorn coast and a few in Rockhampton were forced to close due to the floods.

"It's really important to note that the one thing that kills businesses is lack of cash flow so any businesses that didn't have that residual cash in their bank to tide them over that really harsh time were going to suffer pretty amazingly," says Mary.

"We didn't suffer anywhere near as much as other regions in Queensland."